An area painter who symbolically portrays relationships through the interplay of objects in still-lifes or through figure work will have her art featured during a dining event this month in Jacksonville.

AMANDA GREIVE of Edinburg will be featured artist during “DINING WITH THE ARTS” hosted by the nonprofit arts organization IMAGINE FOUNDATION at 5:30 p.m. April 30 at the Asa Talcott House, 859 Grove St., Jacksonville.

Greive will have new work at the dining event — mostly pieces she created from 2010 to the present.

“It’s all very much based in realism, and there is definitely a very strong symbolic presence there,” said Greive, who is participating in her third Dining with the Arts.

“Most of my earlier work speaks to the human condition — the need to feel loved, the fear of death — but it courses along significant moments in my life. The newer work has progressed into speaking to femininity, talking about what it’s like to be a female, the different roles that we play and the push and pull that we feel both internally and societally to be mothers or to be in these certain positions.”

Greive said she’s always had the philosophy “paint what you know.”

“What better thing to know than to know what it’s like to be a female and to feel the pressures and the joys of being a female,” said Greive, 35.

A paralegal at Lacy Law Office, Greive, whose husband is Jim Grieve, has bachelor’s degrees in biology and visual arts, and a master’s of public health with an emphasis in epidemiology. Having grown up in Palmer in an artistic household, she became interested in art six or seven years ago.

“I had always been an athlete, and I had a scientific background, also. I was bored, and I thought I’d take a drawing class, and I ended up loving it. It just kind of blossomed from there,” Greive said.

Dining with the Arts includes a catered meal. Tickets cost $20. For more information, call the Imagine Foundation at 473-2726.